DFO ADM Kevin Stringer’s assertion that there is no ISA in
BC salmon is simply shocking. It is stunning that DFO would say so many things
that it knows are not true. I am sorry to say it, but, Stringer should be
fired, and Minister Keith Ashfield should resign.

Here is why:

There are stringent federal
regulations in place to protect Canada's aquatic species, both
wild and farmed, from disease. WRONG. In fact, DFO has gutted
the Fisheries Act of its fish and fish habitat provisions. Ditto for the
Environmental Protection Act. And 200 scientists are being fired.

Furthermore, the enforcement of the regulations is farmed
out to the BC testing system that is so cosy with fish farms that it tells them
when it will come out and look at the farms. DFO does not do its own testing
and relies on the BC system – see its unreliability below.

2.To date,
contrary to some media reports, there has not been a confirmed case of ISA in British Columbia salmon,
either wild or farmed.WRONG.
In fact there are hundreds of thousands of farmed fish that have been confirmed
to have ISA, and wild sockeye back to 1988, and chum, Chinook and pink from the
Fraser River. In addition, the farmed salmon
have HSMI, which also can only have come from Europe
- Creative Seafood in Clayoquot Sound. This is DFO’s own research by Dr. Kristi
Miller. Her confirmation of this is in the Cohen Commissin evidentiary hearings
into fish farm disease in December 2011 – 25% of the farmed Chinook have both
viruses, that is, 125,000 fish per farm.

DFO continues to make this claim, based on the earliest of two sockeye fry
of 48 that tested positive for ISA by the Kibenge lab in PEI, that is the World
Organization Animal Health (OIE) certified lab for ISA in the western
hemisphere. The Nylund, Norway
lab is the only other OIE certified lab in the world for ISA. It retested the
48 samples finding one weak positive and its notes say there is a problem in
BC. The DFO Moncton lab retested the degraded samples and reached a finding of
‘inconclusive’. Minister Ashfield changed this finding to negative, and has
stuck saying no, something he knows is untrue.

3.Upon the
allegations that ISA had been found in wild Pacific salmon, the government
reacted quickly and tested the samples using Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Gulf
Fisheries Centre, which meets internationally recognized standards for ISA
testing; results from our laboratory can be considered valid. WRONG. This
refers only to the first two sockeye fry, and the DFO Moncton lab does not meet the OIE standards. In fact, in
the Cohen testimony, Miller, Nylund and Kibenge discussed that lab and found
that it uses old equipment and could not find ISA in sockeye samples from
Miller. Furthermore, Miller retested the samples using the Gagne, Moncton procedures and
could not confirm ISA. This means the DFO lab is not up to international
standards. The results cannot be considered valid.

4.The
Government of Canada, in
collaboration with the province
of British Columbia,
tested all samples related to the suspected ISA investigation in B.C. WRONG.
There have been many wild salmon testing positive for ISA at either the
Kibenge or Nylund labs. Furthermore, this is DFO only referring to the first sockeye
samples discussed above, not the extra wild salmon tested later. The BC public
are so concerned with DFO/BC testing system/CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection
Agency) that we have anti-ed up $27,000 ourselves to have fish tested.

Furthermore, the Cohen testimony of Miller,
Nylund and Kibenge also stated that the BC system said it was using one test,
when, in fact, it was not. In addition, it was using a probe developed by an
in-house grad student that has never been verified by other scientists, like
say, Nylund and Kibenge. This renders the testing of the 4,700 farmed fish as
negative for ISA simply unreliable. All the fish need to be tested again - by an arms length lab like Kibenge and Nylund.

5.Based on the
final results, there have been no confirmed cases of the disease in wild or
farmed salmon in B.C. In recent years, the Government of Canada and B.C.
have tested more than 5,000 wild and farmed salmon in B.C. for infectious
salmon anemia. WRONG. Refer back to item 4.

6.None has ever tested positive. ISA poses no
risk to people. Pacific salmon appear to be resistant to the disease.WRONG. Refer back to earlier
items. There have been hundreds of thousands of confirmed ISA virus-carrying
farmed and wild salmon. The doomsday scenario is that ISA may wipe out all the
10 species of wild Pacific salmonids from California
north to Alaska and all the way down to Korea. This
extinction threat is real and DFO/CFIA/BC Governments are refusing to admit it
and get on with getting rid of the fish farms diseases such as ISA, HSMI and
IHN.

In Clayoquot Sound, Chinook stocks are on the edge of
extinction and there are 22 fish farms in this non-flushing body of ocean. Here
are DFO’s own 2012 numbers for wild Chinook: Bedwell – 93; Moyeha – 0; Tranquil – 11; Megin – 35; Cypre – 362. They
stand no chance against as many as 20,000,000 farmed salmon, each of 22 farms
releasing 60 billion virus particles per hour.

7.Canadians
can have full confidence in the testing results from the Gulf Fisheries Centre,
as they can in the Government of Canada's serious and ongoing commitment to
protecting the health of Canada's wild and farmed fish from aquatic animal
diseases. WRONG. As above, this
is stunningly wrong and all the 10 species of pacific salmonids, perhaps a
billion fish, are in peril from this refusal to admit the diseases have been
brought to the Pacific Ocean. I used to work
for government. When the facts came out you modified what you had said before,
so that it accommodated the new information. You did not simply continue saying what you
knew was untrue. Ashfield should resign.

You may recall that east coast cod were lost
because DFO did not follow its own science. The same thing is happening to west
coast salmon. The solution is simple: put fish farms on land, or send them back
to Norway.
There are only 820 actual jobs in BC, less than 0.2% of GPP – against the
backdrop of a billion wild Pacific salmon.

Please
note: I won the 2012 Art Downs Award for environmental writing
for my continued research into the science and diseases of farmed salmon.

1 comment:

Please note there is the technical issue of a fish having the ISA virus and having the disease of ISA.

However, the OIE recently changed its definition of ISA disease and added the category of possible ISA disease. That means that BC (and NS, and NF) now fall into this category. Both DFO and the CFIA are trying to discredit the OIE labs, and wild BC salmon, in order to back fish farm sales in other countries.

About Me

I won the national RODERICK HAIG- BROWN AWARD, 2016, for environmental writing, largely for this blog (www.fishfarmnews.blogspot.com) that has become a global portal for the environmental damage made by Norwegian-style fish farms.
I won the Art Downs Award for 2012 for sustained and outstanding writing on environmental issues, in my case, fish farms.
The award was based on 10 columns on fish farm issues in the Times Colonist newspaper, three public submissions to the Cohen Commission on Fraser sockeye and this blog.
If you want to book me to speak, for a lecture, talk, or panel on fish farm environmental damage, contact me on this blog by leaving a message on a post.